Spotting High-Growth Regions Through Digital Signals

When investors want to capitalize on real estate growth in a popular vacation country, they have two options:

Old way: Rely solely on traditional market forecasts that predict modest growth.
New way: Extend their traditional insights by using Digital Due Diligence to monitor digital interest, such as search volumes for property purchase queries, social media posts tagging travel destinations, sentiment analysis around vacation spots, and other digital signals that reveal trends in vacation behavior, real estate interest, and more.

Through these digital signals, the investor detects surges in interest for certain regions, perhaps on picturesque islands or up-and-coming urban neighborhoods. This early indication suggests rising demand for vacation stays and real estate purchases, well before prices start to climb visibly.

Now, let's look at an example on how this works:

Investors analyzed historical market data and macroeconomic indicators (such as GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation) alongside real estate metrics like property values, transaction volumes, rental yields, and vacancy rates. The data revealed:

• The Bank of Greece reported an 11.2% annual increase in apartment prices in 2022, though growth moderated to 4.13% in the following years.
• The total transaction value in Greek real estate grew from $5.83B in 2019 to a projected $9.39B by 2029 (a 3.2% CAGR).
• Greece’s housing market experienced strong nominal price growth from 2019 to 2024, peaking at 15.05% in 2022, while inflation-adjusted growth remained at around 6%.

Meanwhile, digital signals highlighted surging interest in Greek vacations and property in popular yet evolving regions like Mykonos, Santorini, and Crete. For example:

• Google searches for “buy property in Greece” jumped 35% year-over-year.
• Searches specific to “buy property in Mykonos” soared by 120%, while searches for “buy property in Crete” grew by 80%. Overall Crete-related property queries rose by 50% in 2020.
• Instagram posts tagged #Santorini increased by 40% in 2020, while #Mykonos surged 80% in 2021.
• Social media mentions for these high-potential destinations spiked significantly, reflecting growing consumer enthusiasm and positive sentiment.

Tourism: The Catalyst behind Demand

Supporting these trends is Greece’s booming tourism sector, which rebounded spectacularly after 2020, with revenues jumping from €6.2 billion to €17.3 billion in 2022 and visitor arrivals more than tripling, from 7.4 million to 27.84 million. This tourism revival fuels real estate demand, especially in vacation hotspots identified through digital trends. Some highlighted insights:

• Digital interest and searches for “Greek vacations” surged by 40% year-over-year in 2020. Region-specific search volume also saw significant growth: Santorini was up 70%, Mykonos 60%, and both Rhodes and Crete experienced a 50% increase.
• In 2020, positive mentions of Greek travel destinations increased by 25% on platforms like Instagram, reflecting growing consumer enthusiasm.

Outperforming Traditional Market Expectations

Macro forecasts in 2020 predicted only modest property value growth of around 3-4% annually, equating to approximately 12% compound growth over four years. However, leveraging digital insights painted a different picture, enabling investors to focus on digitally trending regions and achieve realized compound growth surpassing 60% by 2023, far exceeding the overall market average of 34%.

Why Did Digital Data Work?

Digital footprints allow investors to identify demand heatmaps early, spotting subtle shifts in consumer behavior (whether in search trends, booking data, or social media engagement) that traditional economic indicators often miss. This advanced foresight:

• Pinpoints emerging hotspots well before prices surge.
• Enables more strategic and timely investments.
• Reduces reliance on lagging, traditional data sources.